Lawler: Early Read on Existing Home Sales in May

From housing economist Tom Lawler:

Based on publicly-available local realtor/MLS reports released across the country through today, comprising over 225,000 transactions, I project that existing home sales as estimated by the National Association of Realtors ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.25 million in May, down 0.7% from April’s preliminary pace and down 21.3% from last May’s seasonally adjusted pace. Unadjusted sales should show a smaller YOY % decline, reflecting this May’s higher business day count relative to last May’s.

Local realtor/MLS reports suggest that the median existing single-family home sales price last month was down by about 0.5% from last May.